Sketches of the Week

Kew Beach, 2017

Beach Skateboard Park, 2017 

The Sidekick! Cafe, 2017

My first live-action video... of vector rendering!

Heart Cookie Vector Art 

I've been wanting to try recording my work process on my computer.  I'm going to be making a small series of video clips from a sketch for a Match-3 game idea I had for a month now.  Not that I'm creating that game idea right now but it's a mock-up of concept work in vector graphics (Adobe Illustrator CS2).  

I had done video clips before on Youtube before, with my compiled Sketch a Day Challenge slideshows that I started 3 years ago.  There hasn't been anything new added since the final quarter  video clip.  I'll get them posted as the update times come.  So, please check my Youtube Channel with the links below to see my collection of clips!

My Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYtg6Gsg6plCMiqahOzS7mA 

Heart Cookie Video Clip:  https://youtu.be/E2AWG35LFGw

Sketches of the Week

 First Sketches of my New Sketchbook, A 6" x 4" Pentalic Traveler Pocket Journal 

(My last one got warped months ago while I was out on a day trip cycling

 by being caught out in a big rainstorm)

Shoemaker's Bench - Bata Shoe Museum

Bird Bone Needle Cases - Bata Shoe Museum

The Dirty Bird - Near Bloor & Bathurst

Happy Valentine's Day

A little late in the day but HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY.

Valentine's Day

One-Day Character Design, plus a bestiary on Shadow Clowns

I managed to do the 4-piece image below in one day.  For anyone not knowing about this creature, it's one that I've made up of my balloon clown creature but as an evil ghostly clown version. 

One-Day Character Design - Inked Sketch (Top Left), Cleaned up Computer Image (Top Right), Fully Inked and Watercolours (Bottom Left) and Photoshop Colouring Image (Bottom Right).  

So I officially called it a 'Shadow Clown'.  They are airborne flyers like Balloon Clowns but with a more carnival goth fashion and notoriously terrifying.  Due to the use of an unknown plant resource for making a stronger rubber membrane, these alternative kind of Balloon Clowns became tougher and almost un-popable.  However it caused them to become less colourful, behaving creepier and mischievous and slowly gaining magical dark shadow powers over time. Becoming more drawn to these dark powers, they use them with their decorative yet frightening appearances to scare and/or place satirical curses on their victims.  They have also shapeshifting abilities to change into terrifying monster forms or into deceitful forms like an elder man/woman to mislead their victims into traps. The Balloon Clowns soon feared these "warped clowns" and forced them to leave from their homeland of Ballogna.

Their dark magic and their bodies are fuelled by fear and anxiety, the greater the terror they wreak upon people, the more negative essences they can harvest to strengthen themselves.  Some victims can ended up within some very warped chaos or be transformed into twisted new forms, depending on the clown's dark sense of humour and strength of dark magic, to be greatly mortified out of their fear.  It's even possible for victims to be converted into Shadow Clowns too for scares, though it is rare since the Shadow Clowns usually don't like to create rivals or share their "haunting" grounds with too many of their own kind.  They tend to wear obsidian amulets and other dark stone accessories to contain their victims' harvested fears, though they can just absorb or eats the fear essences mostly.

Their only surefire weakness is sunlight as the strong light on skin contact burns and boils on them.  Bright flashes of lights can be used against them to briefly blind them while victims flee or spotlight beams can pin them down to paralyze or disempower them.  They could then be burned with fire or even popped like Balloon Clowns. Bottling them into magic-sealing containers is another alternative to capturing them, even to be use for others' services like genie slaves by savvy owners. Due to their solar weakness, Shadow Clowns avoid being out during the daytime so to avoid being burned away to black ashes. The exception is when there's thick cloudy skies, thick smoke or fog to block out much of the sunlight.  

Anyone's hometown that is plagued with Shadow Clowns avoid being outside in the nighttime to keep from being cursed. As well leave on bright lights throughout their homes to minimize shadows that those creatures can travel through or hide within.  However the curses, no matter how terrible, are not permanent; after some time in the daylight, what or who was cursed is cleanse of the dark magic and revert back to their natural states. For Shadow Clown-converted victims, they can remain as Shadow Clowns if they so choose by avoiding the sunlight thereafter. The dark essences and magic eventually in time permanently settles into them as they haunt and curse others for power and longevity.  

I got inspiration for the look from a classical christmas special called 'Nilus the Sandman: The Boy Who Dreamed Christmas' with a character called the Toymaster (plus some other evil clown images).  

An earlier sketch and rendering of some generic Shadow Clowns.

Sketches for the week

Silhouette Shoppers - Illustrated Edition

Having rendered my previously inked sketches in Adobe Illustrator, here's a showcase of their finals.

The Casual-ler

The Overbear-ed Teen

The Posh Carrier

The Rusher

The Fashionista

The Mother with Stroller

The Jogger

The Mother with Daughter

Sketches of the Week

TTC Sketch - The Listener, 2017 

TTC Sketch - Produce Market, 2017

TTC Sketch - Streetcar Bay, 2017

Package Templates

Of recent, whenever I go out around Toronto to do some shopping or other usual activities, I look out for any unique product packaging.  In some cases, it's usually soiled food containers; paper, card stock or cardboard materials that have grease, crumbs or condiment stains or dirt smudges or dog-eared wear.  I know it sounds like I'm picking up garbage from the streets, not that it isn't a good thing to do for the environment, people really do need to be more responsible with tossing out their wastes.

It's actually going back since I've been doing origami, the Japanese art of paper folding where I make little paper boxes and other containers.  Found cardboard were too big for the small things I had.  I've been collecting and saving any packages that looks interesting and looks simple enough to replicate at home.  I don't normally keep the soiled packages but instead remake its template design onto my sheets of card stock.  

Here's a recent package I found and a bit of my process of replicating it:

An interesting food package unfolded.  Measurement were marked down in Imperial Inches with a black Sharpie marker.

The package is from a restaurant called Dirty Bird.  I didn't buy the packaging with the fried chicken, just found it in a trash bin (should've been thrown into the recycling being cardboard)

The whole layout was larger than a letter-size card stock sheet so I rebuild the box template in Adobe Illustrator.  I did the original measurements in one layer, then copied and downsized the template to fit within the letter-sized format (11"W x 8.5"H). 

After printing out the template onto card stock, I cut away the excess with a metal ruler and utility knife. I folded the lined guides and glued its flap to fully assembled the mini-box here.

This version is about half the original size of the greased cardboard packaging.

Here's a small fries paper dish template.  One all assembled and an unused cut template. 

Here's a template of a McDonald's fries cup (or was it Wendy's?).  One assembled, one unused but slightly creased.  To help make neater folds, I made some paper scores for straight lines and dotted cut lines for the curves.

Here's my version of a 500mL milk carton drink, figured that it could be use for promotional work. I made it to be reusable once opened up.

I suppose when I get in the right mood, I could design my own package templates.  Well, that's it for now.

Sketches of the week

Half Dark Bugs (LadyBug and Goliath Beetle)

Cyclist - TTC Sketch, 2016

Reader - TTC Sketch, 2016